Some notes on the “Macedonian issue”
to share the means of struggle in order to abolish the states, the capital and the borders in the Balkan area and all over the world What’s happening on the southern Balkan Peninsula in the early 2018
Under the pressure and after exhortations of NATO, but also by the will of Greek and Macedonian governments for a solution to be found, awareness has been risen once again around the issue of national naming of the neighboring country, their language and their state. Alongside, on the one hand there has been a burst of nationalism and theories about “non-liberated Greek/Macedonian lands” and on the other questions have been risen about what NATO’s intentions really are, due to the pressure that is put on this matter, or with one phrase: “Which interests and which forces are into conflict around the naming issue of our neighbors?”
And no matter how clear are NATO’s intentions to increase its influence and power on the Balkan area, it is also very important to see what interests, which forces and what fables/myths surround the fact that hundreds of free buses brought all the christian flocks, all the members of conservative forces, patriots, nationalists, nazis, centrists, rightists, even leftists in the demonstrations of Thessaloniki and Athens.
In spite the demonstrations haven’t reached the desirable numbers of their “non-party-member” coordinators, there were a few thousands of people that where chanting national and polemical marches. A complete satisfying audience for every Fragoulis, every Anthimos, every Mikis of this land, either to close their life circle as disgracefully as they lived the last decades, participating in a government with ND (New Democracy) for example in 1989, or to officially begin their political career “flirting” with businessmen while watching football matches.
This is the very same crowd that let the necessary vital space on organized fascists of this land and their affiliated groups, in order to strike structures and people of the movement, something that unfortunately left Libertatia squat burnt to the ground, a fact in which we should put a lot of think on and we should organize our counter-attack.
At the same time the movements have gained useful experience not only from the successful actions of anti-nationalist propaganda in the two big cities and the rest of the country, that didn’t left space for the racist/nationalist propaganda to be spread, but also from all the other actions that took place these days: antifascist patrols, moto-demos, wide flyer distribution, combat actions, graffiti, posters, anti-nationalist demonstrations, combative collective self-defense against the attack on the self- organized theater “Empros” in Athens and the Free Social Space “Sholeio for the learning of freedom” in Thessaloniki, self-defense of the spaces and the neighborhoods that we live and fight together, either we are “locals” or “foreigners”.
There are lot that need to be said and many more that need to be done against the states, the bosses, the fascists. And we will do it. But first let’s put our “class glasses” and have a look on the history of our area taking things from the top. In a period, similar to the current, when Greeks were not the only ones that lived on the region of the contemporary Greek state, and Greek was not the only language being spoken... The settlement of Slavs on the Byzantine Empire region
“Neither plague nor cholera have done that bad to humanity as historians and history have done” Giannis Skarimpas
In the early years of the Byzantine Empire, during the massive immigration and not later than the middle 6th century when we find the first recorded reports for their existence in the byzantine region, Slavic tribes were looting, at first, and some decades later have settled in southern areas of the Balkan region.
From Peloponnisos to Giannena and from the current Greek west to the central and east Macedonia there are thousands of Slavs that are going to create, on the alpine areas initially and later on the lowlands, small communities.
On the stint of time, big parts of their population were Christianized while they were continuously swapping between resisting and being subject to the byzantine power, between declaring war, seizing Thessaloniki and defending its grounds, while being violently moved by the order of Byzantine Emperors to the Anadolu (Mikra Asia). At that time they began to live and mix among other nations that were residents to the region. Ottoman period
The years before and after the fall of Istanbul on 1453, the biggest part of the Balkans passed under the control of Ottoman empire. The sultans, not being able to turn such a big part of population into Islam - something that would be able to cause trouble and corrosion for the empire – imposed taxes, giving religious independence to the subject populations, as long as they would have the religion leaders under their command and control.
Later they passed the administrative initiation to the so called millets – executive subdivision of the empire – which required from their subjects to be from the same religion. Binding element of these populations was the fact that they were Christians, Jewish, Armenian or Muslims.
So alongside the Christian millet, millets like the Jewish and the Armenian were created, although the first would have more privileges in front of the sultan, while progressively the archbishop of Istanbul would be designated as the “national leader” of all christian population, by absorbing the rest of the patriarchates.
The Slav-speaking and Greek-speaking populations (alongside the Jewish, the Armenian and the Turkish) continue to live together for hundreds of years under the Sultan, among periods of peace, war and even revolt against them.
*At this point it would be good to mention that, opposing the current perception around the nation, that ignores the historical needs which gave birth to it by using many historical inaccuracies and many lies, medieval empires were multinational and multiracial, with binding element, not in all of the occasions, the loyalty to the emperor, the religion and only in a few occasions the common language. Distinctive example is that in periods of the byzantine empire, someone being called a “Greek” meant being a heathen and furthermore some of the byzantine emperors were of different nationality (Greek, Latin, Arabic etc) The beginning of the end of the multinational The insurrection of Ilinden empires At the late 19th century all the vultures competed The evolution of technology, the transformation each other over the division of the territories of on the relations of production, the gradually rise the collapsing ottoman empire. The Macedonian of the bourgeois on power and the abolishment region was divided in three geographic of imperial and monarchic systems have already apartments-villayets (Thessaloniki, Monasteri- begun during the 18th century. In the weaker part Bitola, Kosovo). Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia even of the imperial world, the Ottoman empire, there Romania were trying to put their own teachers were no difference on this process despite the and their own priests in every village in order to different time and quality of the events. create their own national consciousness on the local population, while Christians have been Since 1804’s Serbian revolution, 1821’s Greek already divided to those who were under the revolution and the participation of Bulgaria on influence of the patriarchate – something that the Russian side in the Russian-Turkish wars – didn’t require for them to speak Greek or being and the creation of Bulgarian state on 1878 – self-characterized as Greeks – and those who things are getting clearer. were under the influence of the Exarchate – which didn’t require for them to speak Bulgarian The divided empire gave its place to new or being self-characterized as Bulgarians . national states which would fight each other over larger territorial gain (often with the influence of And while the neighboring states were getting the Constantinople Patriarchate – which ready to feast on the next outbreak, the Internal primarily represented the Greek and orthodox Macedonian Revolutionary Organization populations — over the other patriarchates that (VMRO) is being divided. Although it begun as claimed both their religious and administrative an organization that was willing to bring the autonomy, something that the Bulgarian Macedonian region under Bulgarian influence or patriarchate would achieve in 1870). occupation, a big majority of its members turns into socialist ideas and starts talking about an Even if the creation of national states was an autonomous Macedonia which would belong to effect of economical and social rearrangements those that live in it (of all the nationalities and of and conflicts that lasted hundreds of years, the all the religions) inside a Balkan federation. co-existence, also for hundreds of years, of people of different origins, religions, and On July of 1903, hundreds of farmers and languages had deeply influenced the workers, mostly Slavic-speaking but also Greek- revolutionary ideas of that era. Early socialist speaking, Albanian-speaking and Vlachic- ideas with a tone of unspecified “pan- speaking, got armed against the ottoman Balkanism” can be met on lots of radical trends oppression. The participation of farmers with of that period, such as “Democratic Eastern “Greek national consciousness”, disappoints the Federation”, of which the Greek part was named Greek consultants and agents of the region, and “Political Association Rigas”. “Rigas” referred leads them to cooperate with the sultan, to Rigas Velestinlis (Fereos), who supported the providing information for the repression of the pan-Balkan insurrection against the ottoman insurrection, while the so-called “Macedonian- oppression and the creation of a multinational fighter” Strebeniotis with the support of an and multi-religious state, in front of which all ottoman division attacked the rebels. citizens would be equal. After the ending of the insurrection, massive executions took place and whole villages were burnt to the ground, not only of Slavic but also of Greek and Vlachic population. At the same time Bulgarian nationalists, that didn’t manage to take the insurrection under their control, had murdered local fighters that demanded the Macedonia to be made autonomous. The conflict for the prevail on Macedonia between Bulgaria and Greece (known as “Macedonian Struggle”…)
“The village had over 600 houses… They were the worst Bulgarians of my region. When Vardas decided to execute their punishment, he wrote me and I sent him the names of our agents so he wouldn’t touch them. On the eve of 25th March 1905 he, alongside 300 men were hidden in the woods that was opposite to the village. In the morning they got into the village and started shooting. They killed and burnt their houses. That day 79 Bulgarians were murdered and unfortunately some of our side, Slavic-speaking but precious. Our people weren’t hurt so much, because I gave the list to Vardas and they managed to hide...”
metropolitan bishop Germanos Karavangelis
This is one of the historical periods that political and national reasons have transformed it into the one that has so many lies gathered in it. After the Ilinden insurrection and the violent actions of Bulgarian nationalists against Greek-speaking and Slavic-speaking populations, the Greek state decided to increase its involvement in the Macedonian region that was still under Ottoman regime.
Its main target was the populations that have come under the Exarchate influence (Bulgarian patriarchate). This is why the Constantinople patriarchate has sent, beyond of the money, its own bishops (like metropolitan bishop of Kastoria Karavangelis Germanos). The money were intended to go to – mercenary – guerrilla teams that were created by the official Greek state to finish the hard job.
The cruelty of the cleansing that took place on 1904-1908, the hunt on those that participated and organized the Ilinden insurrection, the burnt to the ground villages and the mass translocations were all actions of the terror groups, that often took action under the cover of the Ottoman regime and alongside the same violent acts of the Bulgarian Komitadji, made the Macedonian region a field of competition (on the level of cruelty and terrorism perhaps) between two different states that didn’t have this region under their control. An example of all that is the village of Zagoritsani, where the hatred of the “Macedonian fighters” for a whole village that participated in the insurrection of 1903 was that big that among the dead were found even Greeks or patriarchate residents of the village…
The point is that for this period of history, massive massacres that have been notified from international and even from Greek historians, are not mentioned in the history books that are being taught in the schools. On the other hand only questions can be risen about the presence of “Macedonian fighters” and the way they are depicted in these books.
In order to be brief we will only mention the infamous metropolitan bishop of Kastoria, Germanos Karavangelis. Associate of the Ottoman regime, he asked the repression of the Ilinden insurrection due to his main target which was to bring back – violently – the Exarchate’s population under the influence of the Constantinople patriarchate which explains why he was sent to Western Macedonia.
He is the same that, with the blessings of the Orthodox church, organized torture, translocations, mass exterminations and even put a bounty on Lazar Poptraikov’s head if Christos Kottas could exterminate him, although the latter was eventually turned in by Karavangelis. Kottas or better Kote Christov was a warlord in western Macedonia that participated in the Ilinden insurrection and was meber of the VMRO, later he fought on the side of Greeks but had kept good relations with Slavic-speaking Macedonians and for that the Greek state didn’t trust him so after he was used, he was “thrown away”.
The cruelty of Greeks and Bulgarians in Macedonia (where the first found as an excuse the latter to hide the imperialistic ambitions of both states) ended with the rise of neo-Turkish movement, one last attempt of the ottoman empire to adjust in the new capitalistic reality. New borders are always being engraved with the blood of the oppressed in order to full the stomachs of their oppressors - 1st Balkan, 2nd Balkan, 1st World War-
“States are neither aesthetic, nor moral, but violent forces and it’s very right that they have a vulture in their coat of arms. The whole wisdom of the world’s history can be briefed entirely in the following sentence: every state grabs, while it is able. The breaks for digestion and because of weakness are called peace.” Carl Spitteler
And suddenly, as it is often with the bourgeois and the states, the deck is re-distributed according to their interests and not some ideology, as some of their subjective servants like to claim. In front of the weakened empire, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria form an alliance and from arch enemies they end up fighting side by side against the Ottoman army.
The term “looting” is not enough to describe the events during the 1st Balkan war. Despite the excuse of the “nationally related population” for whom each state was “fighting”, the deal that was made before the war about the territory distribution, was not followed, so every state would keep every region it could grab…
So, characteristically, we see that Thessaloniki, literally in the last minute, came under control of the Greek state, whereas in close distance the Bulgarian army was ready to approach the city. At the end of the 1st Balkan war, Greece has Epirus, a large part of Macedonia and the Aegean islands under its control, Serbia had expanded its borders, while Bulgaria had taken control of the smallest territories on the region, which lead to the declaration of the 2nd Balkan war against its former allies.
In the 2nd Balkan war the odds for the Bulgarian state are getting even worse, since new rivalries have gotten into the war against it: Romania and the Ottoman empire. At the end of the war Greece has doubled the grounds that came under its control as well as its population, something that meant that populations of non-Greek national consciousness remained in the area, while 350.000 Muslims are forced to immigrate in Turkey while on the other hand 100.000 Christians have moved to the western shore of the Aegean after the hunt against them in eastern Thrace and in Anadolu (Mikra Asia). On the new grounds that have come under the control of the Greek army, lived large populations of Jews, Armenians, Slavs and Bulgarians. Something that creates a big issue that opposes the ambition for a Greek myth to be built about the newly created “singe-languaged” and “single-national” state. However, the so called geographic region of Macedonia was split among Greece (51%), Serbia (39%), Bulgaria (9,5%) and Albania (0.5%) according to the Bucharest treaty which puts an end to the Balkan wars.
The Great War or else the 1st World War, was a result of the conflicting interests of the bourgeois of Europe, it had spread in a large part of the world and lasted from 1914 to 1918, while the casualties reached 20.000.000 people, both soldiers and civilians. That was the cost for the European working class of that time, of which many associations, parties and leaderships have consented to the big slaughter (except Luxemburg-Liebknecht in Germany, Lenin in Russia and some other internationalist anarchists and communists). At the Balkan front all the states of the region took part in the war, forming those alliances that they believed that would favor the territorial expansion they desired in the area. The participation of Greece delayed due to the conflict between Venizelos and the King about the side Greece had to choose. The “national division” and the two parallel governments ended with the Entente’s ultimatum on the king, while some regions of Athens had been already hit and the French army had disembarked in Piraeus. The King fled the country and Greece at last goes to war, of which takes as a return some Bulgarian (Komotini, Alexandroupoli) and Turkish (Eastern Thrace, Imvros-Tenedos) territories. The continuity of “national excitement” era and the narrative of the “Big Idea” is more or less known. A Greek imperialistic war beside the thousands of casualties, leads to massive translocations, also known as “exchange of populations”. The Macedonian region is flooded with those that part of the local Greek “super-patriots” once called “turkosporous” (of Turkish seed) and the last remaining Muslims are forced to leave. Macedonia has gone from being the melting pot of the peoples to a violently hellinized/christianized area…
The lingual oppression of Macedonian Slavs during the Metaxa’s dictatorship
“they don’t want me to be neither Bulgar, nor Srb, nor Grtsk. Only Makedon ortodox” from the book “Life in Tomb”(Життя в могилі) of Stratis Myrivilis before it had been censored with author’s responsibility
It’s not odd that in schools, as also in the mainstream trend of Greek historiography there were never mentioned the following: After the war 100-200.000 Slavic-speaking have chosen not to be designated as Bulgarians which was basic requirement in order to have the right not to change their residence, which was their choice at that time. According to Florina’s prefect, the Slavic-speaking population of the region in 1930 was over 50% of the total residents. This part of the population chose to speak “Makedonika” (Makedonski), a mixture of Vlachic, Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian dialect, while their “national consciousness” differed from a village to another, among Greek, Bulgarian or Macedonian.
However the ideal of the nation, required among the other elements, the existence of one common language and so in the beginning, priests and teachers tried to learn to the kids to speak Greek. Afterwards one thing it is sure, that the method that was followed didn’t seem to be educational at all. From 1936 administrative measures were taken, it was forbidden for the Slavic-speaking to speak the Slavic dialect in public and the translocations to islands were made with no exceptions. The same treatment was applied on those that were speaking Vlachic. Prefects, Mayors, police forces took on the mission to apply the law that prosecuted immediately those who spoke any dialect except the Greek. Reprimands, fines, forced castor-oil consumption, imprisonments, beatings, translocations on Metaxa’s concentration camps on the Aegean islands were only a few of what was meant for those who spoke the language they have learned when they were kids.
At the same time the immortal Greek entrepreneurship takes it to another level: there are recorded examples that refer to the prefect of Kastoria and Florina region, who used to blackmail people to bribe him in order not to accuse them of speaking “weird dialects” even though they might have never spoken them. Balkan communist parties and the “Macedonian” issue from Interwar to Civil War.
A series of stepbacks revolving around the subject of national identity of Slavic-speaking Macedonians have been made, as it is natural from Comintern, from Balkan communist Federation and especially from the Communist Party of Greece. Sometimes admissible as right divergence, other times because “this is how it was imposed by global or local equilibriums and the Communist International and other times for “strategy reasons”.
During the Intewar period, inefficiently and without frictions and withdraws, in 1924 in particular, the view of Comintern was embraced: The people of Macedonia, (apart from the purposes of the Bulgarians and Greek bourgeois, who wanted to use for their own interest), ought to fight for national self-determination and autonomy, In an independent Macedonia who, in turn, would be the center of a Balkan Federation. The Comintern’s view expected a labor and agricultural revolutionary state in the Balkans, something that could be reinforced by a national-liberation movement. That movement would turn its’ back to nationalism and would follow an anticapitalist path, an assessment that, judging by its’ result failed to withstand.
Important members of the party, either because of fear of persecutions that would follow, or because they disagreed with the time and the process that this issue would be initiated, or maybe because the Thrace and Macedonian issue was placed by the Bulgarian communist party. The Bulgarian’s communist party views, for the identity of the Macedonians and their Bulgarian origin were not so clear. After they delayed as long as they could the processes, in the end those members that opposed this opinion were ousted or deleted by the party. Until this specific decision was approved by the Greek communist party, it was already being criticized from other communist parties directly and not ,as rightish and chauvinist, influenced by the persecutions of the Greek bourgeoisie. Finally, in the third emergency conference that was held in 1924, the view for an “independent Macedonia and Thrace at point of a Balkan Socialist Federation” was defined.
During the 30’s, Comintern speaks clearly about a Macedonian nation, something that doesn’t bring much pleasure to the communist party of Bulgaria, while in contrast the Yugoslavian Communist party bounds for a communist party to be created in the Serbian grounds of Macedonia. The Greek communist party, due to the (violent) population modifications in Macedonia following the Treaty of Lausanne, will drop out of the Statement for the autonomy of Macedonia and declares that it fights for the equality of the minorities within the state of Greece. But the changes don’t come to an end here. On the contrary, things get more complicated within the next decade…
During the WWII period, the biggest part of the Greek domain was under the occupation of the Nazi Germany, whereas the east Macedonia was ceded as a form of possession to the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians who wanted to retaliate for the persecutions of their people following the Balkan wars, started violent persecutions of Greeks in the area, changed the name of whole regions and brought back 50.000 colonists that were ousted during the Interwar within the common population migration.
At the same time in west Macedonia, besides the hundreds of thousands of Muslims that have been persecuted from their homes, a massive transfer of Jews in Thessaloniki is being performed along with the surrounding areas in concentration camps. Because of that, the Greek element becomes stronger in west Macedonian with exception of the thousands of Slavic-speaking Macedonians (100- 150.000 approximately).
Because the communist party of Greece wanted to have the Slavic-speaking Macedonians active in the national resistance, taking advantage of the relations based in trust that had formed between them in the last decades, at the time when the majority of the political system hunted them and kept them oppresed, contrarily with the rest of the population, made it doable for the formation of the National Liberation Front (NOF) of Macedonians. The NOF would fight along with Greek People’s Liberation Army (E.L.A.S), in the antifascist struggle but within a full equality between the minorities within the Greek grounds. Besides, that certain period in the communist party was included the view for national unity that established the “mountain” government with metropolitan politicians. Moreover, it was the time that political rivals both in the area but also in the rest of Greece, intended to expose the communist party to the national feelings of a part of the society, were forcing it to crawl in gradually more and more nationalist points of view, something that was performed with a rather relevant consistency; even in the 1945, where the civil political forces broached the subject of the “Greekness” of the north Epirus and the annexation of its grounds to Greece, something that affected the ideologically adjacent socialist nation, the communist party of Greece embraced this Greek demand.
Following the defeat of the Germans in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, the power lied in the hands of the communist parties and the Slavic-speaking Macedonian people was already being claimed by the communist parties of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. At the same time, Bulgaria refused to become part of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the control of Tito, who later created the People’s Republic of Macedonia, since the people that fought the Nazis in the region had the same national conscience.
Now in the Greek territory he allowed at first the establishment of SNOF (Slavic-Macedonian People’s Liberation Front), which was influenced by the Yugoslavic communist party. The Yugoslavic communist party in contrast to the communist party of Greece, that wanted equality within the Greek state, had promised even the unification of the “Macedonia of the Aegean” with the Republic of Macedonia, along with being split from Greece, and the concomitance within Yugoslavia.. The two military forces of the Slavic-speaking Macedonians were disobedient to the orders of the military cadre of the rebels. So finally, they were persecuted by the Greek Army and fled to Yugoslavia. It is vital to be mentioned, that thousands were the numbers of Slavic-speaking Macedonians that stayed loyal to the opinions of the Communist Party of Greece due to their agreement with the view about autonomy within the Greek state.
But that wasn’t the last change to take place either. Getting ready for a civil war, the party approaches again the Slavic-speaking people of Macedonia and their main organization, NOF. In the continuous back and forth movements, it mentions again the views about the full autonomy and the right for self- determination until the breakaway, taking once again steps back and forth. These changes took place in order for the party to find the appropriate redundancies that will oppose the national army that acted with the help of the Americans. It was already too late. The rapture between Tito and Stalin makes the situation more complex. The borders of Yugoslavia for the fighters of the Democratic Army of Greece, were closed. Thousands of Slavic-speaking Macedonians under Tito’s influence, cross the borders and stay there. Grammos and Vitsi mountains get bombarded by Napalms and the area is dominated by nationalists. Thousands are the Slavic-speaking Macedonians, either with Macedonian or Greek national conscience, that continue to fight until the end.
A tragic event of recent Greek history, is that due to “national reconciliation”, entrance was permitted to “nationally Greek” political exiles, while thousands of “nationally Macedonians” that wanted to visit or live in the area they grew up couldn’t do so.
There is a continuous propaganda taking place, that about the “Macedonian issue” the only responsible is Tito. Tito by himself decided to create “irredentism” in a group of people that didn’t feel neither Serbians, Bulgarians, or Slavs, something that was adequately analyzed in this textual matter. So the ignorant of history- more than proud, Greeks can explain us about the super- nationalistic governments that after the civil war and until the military dictatorship of 1967-1974, because of the dismissal of Tito from the “socialistic bloc” and due to merchant and chancery contacts, were more than willing to ignore the existence of the “Macedonian nation” a few yards away from their northern borders.
They are the same people that have found nowhere in books or testimonies about persecutions and executions, about the prohibition of Slavic-speaking to speak their language and for unequal treatment all of those people “that have never been in Macedonia”….
To sum up, or else: “Clean races exist only in dirty minds”
Let’s try to roughly gather some evidence: One tribe residents in Macedonia for the last 1500 years and for the biggest part of that time period coexists alongside 5-6 other tribes. Large parts of it are being “hellinized” or to be more accurate are being “Christianized”, some of them regret it, later they form common settlements with Christians that spoke different languages, among them the Greek one. Inside the Ottoman empire though, the borders differed completely, the geographic definition “Macedonia” covered a territory that spread up to Skopjie, where the population was under a common administrative state with the Greeks as they were both Christians, and that happened because that was the way they were divided, while in that time the definition of nation had completely other meaning from the one that there is today. Later they have come in the center of dispute of three religions and respective bourgeoisie that wanted to subjugate and use them in order to conquer the specific region or at least have it under their influence(Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia).
They rose up in 1903 in order to form one autonomous Macedonia that intended to be included inside a Balkan federation that would bring peace in the Balkan area. Many Greek farmers join them in that cause. One after the other, Ottomans and Greeks slaughter them, often in cooperation, while the Bulgarians cleanse the parts that wanted autonomy without the Bulgarian “influence”. And it is told that these people have no bonds with this region, because before them, some hundreds of years ago, this region was resident of the ancient Macedonians, the same region that later became gradually part of three empires, the Roman, the Byzantine and the Ottoman.
And at the same time after all this tribe mixture, they talk about pure Greek DNA which lays in the blood of us, native “Greek Macedonians”, that half of our ancestors, came from eastern Thrace, Constantinople and Anadolu, and took the homes of Muslims that lived in the region for hundreds of years. Muslims that also spoke Greek and felt Macedonia as their home but were forced to leave after the Greek imperialist “triumph” in Anadolu (the so-called big idea) so that our ancestors would come here, those that spoke Turkish and felt Anadolu like home and were forced to leave as immigrants due to the massacres that were committed by both the Turkish and the Greek army at that time. And among all these also the Bulgarian army that also slaughtered big population (Slavic-speaking Patriarchate’s, Greek-speaking, Muslims) in eastern Macedonia and in Thrace, as a response to the slaughter and translocations of Bulgarian populations in other regions. While of course the Bulgarians until 1870 were under the influence of “our” patriarchate (yes, we mean those servants of the sultan) and were good with us because we really coexisted in peace for about 1500 years, but then the interests of the religion transformed them into one of the arch enemies of the “Greeks”...
The national narrations are full of lies and we are disgusted by them. We want to crush- and we will do it- the “dead-ends” of nationalism in Balkans. But before we fight them, we ought to laugh with the nationalists, the ones here at first and then all the others: Because at the same time, and after all of the confusions and “people’s cleansing”, they talk about pure Greek DNA, that runs in the veins of native “Greek Macedonians” and comes directly from Ancient Greece, when at the same time they are fond of the multicultural Byzantium. At the same time and if we look into more in our own family tree, it is very likely that some of our ancestors didn’t even know how to speak Greek(Vlachic maybe, Turkish maybe, Slavic maybe, Bulgarian maybe but Greek not likely…) The dissolution of Yugoslavia and the formation of the Republic of Macedonia on the one hand, the mass rally, the embargo and Greece’s economic infiltration in the Balkans on the other
In 1991 the Social Republic of Macedonia declares its independence and the change of its regime, while asking to be named “Republic of Macedonia”.
The decades of silence on behalf of the Greek state towards the Social Republic of Macedonia, a silence that hid clear economic and political interests, came to an end.
The constitution of the neighboring country has references concerning the protection of expatriated populations, while Greece expresses formally for the first time, that it will not accept a name (for the neighboring country) that includes the term “Macedonia”. It also demands that the neighbors declare that “there is not a Macedonian minority in Greece” and that they do not have any territorial prospects against Greece. That last part seems sort of a joke considering it refers to a state with aliquot population, land, GDP, military strength.
In Greece, all the political but the communist parties, most of the capitalists, several institutions and the church organized an enormous mass rally which took place in February 1992 in Thessaloniki. In this rally 1,000,000 people participated to defend that “Macedonia is Greece”. Students were forced to participate and transportation from other cities for people who wished to attend was free of charge…
Nationalism on both sides of the borders grow; the Republic of Macedonia prints maps depicting the “Great Macedonia” which spread up to Thessaloniki. On the same time in Greece talk is risen about the “depressed, Slavic-speaking residents of Skopje who are Greek at heart” as well as that Gevgelija and Bitola should be Greek.
In 1994 Greece decided to impose an economic embargo on the Republic of Macedonia, which led to a great cost on its economy and the living conditions of its population. The embargo ended a year later with certain terms amongst which: the respect of the borders, the acceptance on behalf of the Greek side of the term FYROM as a temporary name, the change of the flag of the neighbors (which at the time depicted Vergina’s sun), the change of bills that showed the White Tower etc. Gradually, nearly 95% of the world’s nations recognized Macedonia with its constitutional name.
Greek economic activity in the Balkans in the past few decades
As it is expected, national narratives go out the window when interests, entrepreneurship and gain come into view. While Greece at a political and diplomatic level where in a great conflict with Macedonia, the Greek capital ravaged the neighboring country as well as the rest of the Balkans.
Low taxes for businesses, low wages, a virgin ground for privatizations after the dissolution of the Soviet economy, limitless competition. All the above brought a smile on the lips of Greek capitalists, who took the chance and expanded immediately at the economic space which spread right next to Greece.
Thousands of businesses (banks, power, communication, construction, commercial, industrial companies etc.) worked miracles by taking advantage of the wild and sudden liberalization of the neighboring economies.
These people supported the nationalist rallies of 1992 as well as that of 2018, and nowadays speak of the “evil Germans” who are ruining our country. How come these “patriots” could not withstand paying the “high” taxes of Greece, nor the “handsome” salaries of their fellow Greek with whom they shared the same language, religion and nationality and instead they move their companies (and therefore their “pockets”) to other countries?
They acted exactly like the middle class Greeks who visit casinos, brothels, gas stations, malls and dentists at Macedonia in order to gain what they can from the perks of free economy and low prices…
So, let’s take a look at some recent examples of Greek businessmen’s moves with which they “conquered” Macedonia while the Greek capital investments in the Republic of Macedonia exceed 1 billion euros.
A realistic record of Greek interests businesses in the neighboring country is around 400, while the number of workers being employed reaches 20,000. We note that at 2016, 8 businesses in which Greek investors are significantly involved were found to be amongst the 200 largest. The third place is occupied by the company OKTA (of the Greek Oil group), the 22nd place is occupied by SJE- TITAN and the 24th is occupied by Veropoulos. Other companies that follow are SIDENOR, AKTOR, ELBISCO and Mermeren Kombinat.
It is also worth noting that in mid-January of 2018, just a few days before the mass rally, the Greek power company (ΔΕΗ) bought the private company EDS which operates in Macedonia, also in the power sector.
In order to write the above we went through thousands of pages from books, websites, essays, political works, in an effort to confirm everything we write. We verified the facts using various sources and whenever possible used sources with opposing interests.
However, we definitely do not claim that we haven’t made any mistakes, nor do we wish to present a historian essay. So in this text one could find faults and things that were omitted. We wish to assure that none of these were done on purpose.
Our purpose was to learn about the land we live in and to share the information we gathered with other oppressed people from the same area. This is why we intended our writing to be brief and stick to the essentials. We understand that details are important but our intention was not to write a book but an easy reading, compact brochure that could be printed in a lot of copies.
Developments 10 years after the NATO conference at Bucharest, 2008 Inter imperialistic rivalries and nationalisms; the timeless source of conflict in the Balkans
Greece continued thinking it can impose which word can be used to define a different state. At 2008, during the conference of the institution of war production (NATO), the USA wished the simultaneous admission in the alliance of several countries of the Balkan peninsula, amongst which the Republic of Macedonia. However, the Greek state vetoes this admission causing the irritation of the USA but also the support of several European countries like France which realized that after this development it could approach Greece more easily to sell armaments (considering the current Greece- USA relations).
Greece’s proposition for the past 15 years- a proposition that was also expressed at the Bucharest conference- has been to find a composite name, with a time or geographic definition before the term “Macedonia”, so that the historical weight the term carries won’t be monopolized by the Republic of Macedonia. On this basis, negotiations continue up until this day occasioned by the rise to the government of Macedonia of a social democratic formation which represents a large portion of the Albanian speaking people of the country (around 25% of the population).
Behind the renewed, intensified communications lie once more the NATO, the E.U. and Russia. For NATO it is of the outmost importance to have one more place in the map under its influence, especially due to the rapid geopolitical changes at the area of east Mediterranean Sea. The quarrels between Turkey - also a NATO member - and the USA, as well as the affiliations of Turkey with Russia, has worried the USA, which make efforts to find a quick solution to the infamous “Macedonian issue”. At the same time, they are upgrading their relations with Greece (new military bases at various parts of the country, “privileged” armament transactions, common military exercises, promises for political and economic assistance, investments). Likewise, a serious matter is to spread the influence of the E.U. especially since various issues have occurred (economic crisis, poverty, Brexit, fallouts of the rivalries between the USA and Russia, China).
The participation of the Republic of Macedonia in the NATO and E.U. is presented by the current government of Macedonia as a step towards the economic and social growth of the country. Russia on the other hand opposes this merger, obviously for its own economic, political and geostrategic reasons.
In this “game of thrones” the Greek government negotiates and waits for a series of perks from the “great powers of the west”-200 years may have past, but nothing seems to have changed. Even though Greece is deep in the neck with debts, it brags about the fact that it stands as a pole of stability for the area, a role that it wishes to upgrade after a possible positive resolution of negotiations. In this direction it develops military collaborations with Israel, Cyprus and Egypt, “players” that wish to acquire a role of “responsibility” with the corresponding perks that come with it.
While the negotiations continue, mass rallies took place at both Macedonia and Greece. At “our” side of the borders two mass rallies achieved to gather a lot of people (around 150,000 at Thessaloniki and 200,000 at Athens).
Behind these rallies lie a series of mechanisms which acted slyly but effectively: Majors, official and unofficial party mechanisms (especially of the center and right political wing- political personas from the “left” wing like Lafazanis and Konstantopoulou as well as the party of KOE did not take part in organizing the rally, however they eagerly participated in it in order to suck up to the national strand in the hopes of acquiring some votes), the church, reservists and in action military servicemen, the police, “cultural Macedonian groups” from Greece and abroad – which acted as servants of the right wing 100 years now- fascists of all colors (supporters of golden dawn, autonomists, Nazis etc) were funded by rich Greek families of homogeneity (?) but also from part of the local capital and they also gave money so that thousands of people throughout Greece would be transported free of charge to the cities were the rallies were held.
The rallies, despite the organizers and part of the press’s hard efforts, did not manage to gather the expected number of people. At the same time they did not find any opposition apart from the anarchist/antiauthoritarian movement and few exceptions from the left wing, the majority of which, numb in the face of these events, settled for the delayed denouncement of the rallies.
The anarchist forces on the other hand, broke the nationalists’ efforts to spread their rhetoric throughout the cities by producing campaigns consisting of both the spreading of propagandistic material and actions. These took place on a mass scale from one neighborhood to the other at Thessaloniki, Athens and almost every city of Greece.
Our collective, along with comrades from other collectives of the city, chose to call publicly certain actions (a public propaganda demo on the 18/1 and a motor-demonstration on the 20/1 at Thessaloniki). We also put up large posters at almost every part of the eastern neighborhoods as well as the center of the city. We also threw out flyers throughout the city. On the day of the nationalist mass rally we consciously chose to guard our neighborhoods, squats and other bases of struggle from fascist attacks. This resulted to the shattering defeat of a group of fascists who attempted to attack the “School” squat which was 500 meters away from their gathering point.
Looking back on those days we believe that apart from the arson of Libertatia-squat, the aftermath of anarchists’ actions in Thessaloniki -and a few days later in Athens- was quite positive. We succeeded in not letting fascist propaganda to take hold of the city the days before the rally since every poster they put up was instantly taken down -sometimes along with the people that put them up. We also managed to ruin the climate of national unity that only appeared along with its spokesmen only for a few hours, during the time the patriotic- nationalist- fascist slime was gathered after being shipped over to Thessaloniki with their free buses. Every move big or small had its significance, especially during such a condense historical period with such hostile conditions. From the ground work that each collective performed at neighborhoods, schools and workplaces, to the politically structured movements of Thursday 18th, Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st, despite the political and tactical miscalculations, Thessaloniki remained an antifascist city. Over 1,000,000 citizens did not even leave their house to check out this infamous mass rally and our actions managed to evoke talks, disputes and resentment towards national unity.
That’s what’s important to us and that is why we were glad to have participated in this exhausting process for days; by keeping 24hour watch and by acting where the oppressed and the exploited of this city live their everyday lives. That is the “place” where we wish and we are willing to be and that is the place where we succeed in existing consistently with our small forces.
Which is our stand on what’s happening around us and how do we move on from here?
No nation unites us with our oppressors, no name divides us from our neighboring oppressed people. We will neither stand along the nationalists, whether they are Greek or Macedonian, nor will we stand along NATO, because we believe that the exploited people of the Balkans and generally of the world can live peacefully together and in a constant war with our common oppressors; we need only to set our minds to it.
Cause we know that the ideology of the nation is one of the most basic tools for the reproduction of capital and authority. Imposed from the people in power, filled in population purges and historical lies, diffused in the social body, the keep the exploited divided, by using fake basis for separating people that do not have any relation with actual life. Because obviously, the way someone manages to survive and live does not have anything to do with where they were born, but everything to do with whether they are bosses or workers, wealthy or unemployed, rich or poor.
With the appeal to national interest, the bosses and their political representatives call the exploited of this world to give their lives to their work or to the battlefields that the people in power cause in order to fill their pockets. It is not a coincidence that during the periods that the capital’s attack to the oppressed gets stronger, so does the patriotic rhetoric. Such, is the period that we live the past few years with all sorts of different governments. A few years now, a new series of austerity measures have been implemented leading to the radical deterioration of our living and working conditions.
Constant wage and pension reductions, prolongment of the age limit for retirement, establishment of flexible work relations (part-time, on call contracts, zero-hour contracts), expansion of unsecured work and contracts for just a few months, abolition of the Sunday holiday, increase of taxes and prices for the essentials, confiscations, evictions, privatizations of public infrastructures and goods, render the survival for the people of our class more and more difficult, for some, even impossible. At the same time, exclusion and repression of workers that are in surplus and of people of the struggle, increases (concentration camps, refugee murders, economic repression of those who struggle, attempts for the expansion of the terrorist law, a new correctional law code, introduction of limitations for working unions and strikes, constant prosecutions).
At the same time, all political fractions and capitalists have assimilated national rhetoric and call for an inter-class cooperation and national unity. They try to convince us that we should bleed some more in order to bail out our nation, that we should give up more and more to save our country, that we should back national economy in order for it to recover. We should be ready to participate in mass rallies that one or the other part of the upper class is organizing or to take part in possible future conflicts between the upper class of our country with the one of Turkey, so that it can be determined who is going to be in charge of the utilization of the Aegean natural gas.
However, we, the exploited people do not forget that behind the pompous national preaches lie the interests of the state and the capital, which have nothing to do with ours. Fascists, who are the main representatives of national/nationalist rhetoric defend exactly those interests. By speaking about national ideals and purity, about religion, about submission to the people in charge, they try to spread these false narratives to the lower classes of society in order to keep us divided and passive against the sources of the exploitation and oppression that we experience.
They also try to do the dirty work for the state and the bosses (besides many of them are bosses themselves or parts of the state’s institutions, like military or cops). They attack and terrorize the parts of society that are not needed or that do not comply with their standards (refugees, homosexuals) or that are struggling (workers, students, anarchists, communists). And even though in the present their lacking presence in the streets means that most of their efforts are not successful, it does not mean that we should forget the things that they have done in the past, the role they played, or the danger that they pose for the exploited and the oppressed when they find the chance to crawl out of their holes.
An example of the above are the facts that took place the days of the rallies in Thessaloniki and Athens, as well as what followed them. Attacks at squats and total arson of Libertatia squat, attack at the self-managed theater “Empros”, attacks at immigrants, few days later attack at a football match of the amateur football club “Proodeftiki – Ekriksi Toumpas” – a team with antifascist, antiracist and antisexist qualities. These are their targets. This is the “quality” of most of the people that consist these rallies and that’s because this is the “quality” of the people who organized them. The bourgeois instigators give the commands and their submissive servants execute them.
If we, the lower classes of this world, wish to get rid of the exploitation and oppression that we experience every day of our lives, first we need to understand that the conditions of our enslavement is not caused by immigrants, nor by people that are of the same class as we are and just happened to be on a different side of the border; our suffering is caused by the states and the capital.
Under these conditions, where the living conditions are degraded more and more every day, where nationalism within our borders seems to be making an effort to rise and acquire social support and where in the general area geopolitical games of NATO, E.U. and of smaller players lead to the qualitative and quantitative increase of conflicts between states, our struggle has a double goal:
Struggle against national unity, struggle to surpass the historic concept of the nation itself and of the myths that helped construct it, struggle for the re-organizing of our class and rupture with the local bourgeoisie whether it is expressed by the right or left political wing, struggle for the protection of our basic needs, for the bettering of our living conditions.
But also internationalist struggle, development of relations with the struggling oppressed of neighboring countries, struggle against the economic and political empire of E.U. and the NATO war machine, against national wars that are taking place or that are being plotted to take place, in order to destroy everything that the period of capitalist “peace” hasn’t already destroyed.
A struggle that will finish off the bosses’ servants - the fascists and the cops - right before it finishes off the whole system of exploitation and oppression that those people defend for some petty rewards.
Struggle here and everywhere, against the capital, against nations and states, against hierarchy and the division of people in different classes, while always having in mind social revolution. Struggle that will give the only realistic answer on behalf o the oppressed and the exploited of the Balkan peninsula, or as we wrote at the posters we put out before the rally of Thessaloniki: We remember our history and we have the historic duty:
To organize and fight, Against national myths that keep the exploited of the world divided Against nationalism, conflicts, wars that are getting more intense at eastern Mediterranean and the Balkan Against every state, every bourgeois and against the NATO war machine.